I know OC. I was just trying to say companies are going to make business decisions on what they think is best for their business. The consumer always gets the shaft, but if you don't "vote" with your pocketbook/wallet, it will just keep going. Like the jump form $10 to $15 DLC on XBL.

~mrmiller

_________________We are a brotherhood bound by honor, our strength is in our numbers, we are S7!*General Disclaimer- I can't type or spellClan Founder

S7 OC wrote:I have Fire fox Safari and Chrome on my Mac book and like th option to use any of them.

What ever happen to Netscape and Webcrawler??

I was reading that Netscape fell apart when AOHell bought them because they didn't keep up the innovations that Netscape had been known for and IE surpassed them. That and MS started packaging IE with Windows. That was the start of, or near the start of, the anti-trust and monopoly cases against MS.

While I agree businesses should make decisions that best help them to profit, a monopoly may not abuse its market power at the expense of the consumer.

Back in 1998 Microsoft (Windows and IE) was the subject of a huge antitrust lawsuit. Competitor browsers argued that MS was bundling its IE with Windows unnecessarily, and since Windows is a monopoly (based on market share) on the Intel driven OEM PC market it unfairly hampered competition to the detriment of consumers. Microsoft lost, and the DOJ (Department of Justice) considered breaking Microsoft up into pieces so they could not abuse that power. After an appeal, DOJ decided to only fine them instead of breaking them up since they have integrated IE into Windows so deeply. When the DOJ fines you they determine what you have cost your competitors and then triple it - a very stiff penalty. MS says IE is "free," but really they raise the cost of Windows to cover the cost of IE developement. Part of the settlement was to allow unrestricted access to their source code to the browser competitors. So they lost their suit and were told they cannot use their OS to unfairly stemy competition by bundling only their browser.

Now the antitrust provisions have expired and MS is at it again. They say these other browsers can't run on Windows 8, which is true since those developers do not have access to the Windows 8 source code. Another antitrust suit is brewing and I forsee MS getting more than a wrist slap this time. If they continue down this road they will get hammered by the DOJ for violating the Sherman Act and will likely get split up this time. Lawyers will get rich and consumers will continue to lose out on competitive innovation for years to come until it is resolved. The biggest problem is that while it is being litagated their is damage being done to these other companies and they have to manager to survive until the courts can stop the bad business practices of MS. After all it is hard to award damages to a company that no longer exists.

My source: I had an antitrust class on my way to earning a degree in Economics.